Grape Jam | 
 enlarge | Artist: Moby Grape
Label: Sundazed Music Inc.
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 163760
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 11192
UPC: 090771119223
EAN: 0090771119223
ASIN: B000UVPJS2
Release Date: October 9, 2007
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| Tracks:
| • | Never | | • | Boysenberry Jam | | • | Black Currant Jam | | • | Marmalade | | • | The Lake | | • | Grape Jam #2* previously unissued | | • | Grape Jam #9* previously unissued | | • | Bags' Groove* previously unissued |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
Originally issued as a companion album to Moby Grape's sophomore set Wow in 1968, Grape Jam remains one of the more adventurous artifacts of late-'60s rock. As much as Wow demonstrated the San Francisco quintet's awesome scope and songcraft, this improvised studio set showed the band's chops. Months before the acclaimed Super Session, Grape Jam let contemporary pop musicians stretch, experiment and cook to their hearts' content. "Boysenberry Jam," "Black Currant Jam" (Al Kooper guests on piano) and the 14-minute "Marmalade" (Mike Bloomfield guests on piano) are juicy instrumental maneuvers, while "Never" is a tough vocal blues, and the effects-laden psychedelia of "The Lake" reminds you just what coast the band comes from.
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| Customer Reviews:
This is a jam, not an arranged CD November 12, 2008
John T. O'Connor (Ohio)
Whether in rock or in jazz, a jam is a session where a group of musicians get together to play for their own amusement, rather than for the audience. Normally, it's "okay, this is the progression we're going to improvise on" or "let's do a major blues in C" or "how about a minor blues in a". Then, everyone takes solos as they agree to, and everyone else supports the soloist. With that in mind, this is not a bad album at all. Yeah, it lacks discipline, but that's what a jam is. The most successful of the original jams were the ones with Al Kooper. For some reason, Kooper always works well in an improvised context. The jam with Bloomfield has moments, but it goes on for way too long, and becomes rather repetitive. Still, this was the very first recorded examples of a group of rock musicians just jamming, and for that reason, it's important. The music is decent, though, and well worth listening to. Not worth 5 stars, but at least worth 4.
 JAMMIN' October 23, 2007
Charles Agee (Tahlequah, Oklahoma United States)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
As I wrote in my review of WOW, I can't be totally objective about this album,which came as a "two-fer" with WOW.
For some reason, I never saw or was not interested in the group's debut. Of course, I've learned better.! Maybe my small town record shop never carried their first album. Or just maybe it was the more psychedlic cover, GUARANTEED to get a teen boy's attention in 1968.
Anyway, GRAPE JAM was my first exposure to rock "jams" and while others with greater musical knowledge than I at the time may have found them tedious, I was fascinated. It was a new world to me and I couldn't have been happier.
Someone else noted how Led Zeppelin ripped these guys off. Well, they stole from the masters, so I guess Moby Grape can be included in some mighty fine company.
This album may only appeal those of us who heard it first in 1968, but I can still say it's great fun.
 Dated, though intriguing, late night jams October 22, 2007
J. DiMoia (Singapore, SG)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
The third in the current Sundazed reissue series, "Grape Jam" was originally packaged with "Wow," presumably an additional enticement as a two for one package deal. In fact, this was Moby Grape's bestseller on Columbia, making the top 30 in the album charts following its original release in 1968. It's also interesting historically in that it precedes "Supersessions" and "Apple Jam," giving it a claim as one of the first such sessions.
The music varies widely in quality, but is always listenable, particularly as an artifact of the group in a "live" setting. Only the first cut contains vocals, which is actually a good thing, as these cuts run long, and don't require vocals in the majority of cases. My major complaint has to do with the laid-back tempo of some of the cuts, bordering on somnolence, but when they kick in the energy level is high. This last remark refers to especially to prominent piano in several of the cuts. Even "The Lake," reportedly recorded to set a young contest-winner's poem to music is worth a listen, if only for its period effects and equally bizarre lyrics (and does anyone happen to know what ever happened to Hairy Mary?).
The unreleseased cuts, available here for the first time, border on jazz, giving the whole set of sessions (Wow / Grape Jam) an ecelectic character. Along with Wow, this remains a worthy listen, although one wished David Rubison had used his editing powers in 1968, and brought these sessions in a stripped-down version closer to the first album. Ultimately, the attempt to caputre a live sound works to a moderate degree, but these guys are more interested in jamming, and lack the tightness of a Quicksilver (see "Gold & Silver, the live version from "Maiden of the Cancer Moon.")
For completists mainly, and those looking for genuine live grape should seek out the "Fall on Amsterdam" or "Dark Magic" boots thaat are still out there somewhere--especially in comparison to the group's Monterey set (available on "Dark Magic") these jams appear to lack discipline.
The least of it, and yet.... October 13, 2007
feralduck (Austin, TX USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Of the original Columbia albums the Grape released, this is the slightest of the five. Yet, it does have some merits, even though as a jam session it doesn't equal the quality of, say, Super Session or Spare Chayne on Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing At Baxters. The saving grace of this album is the opening track, Never, notoriously "rewritten" by Led Zeppelin as Since I've Been Loving You on Led Zeppelin III.
The remainder of the album is pleasant, though hardly essential. One wonders what a true guitar jam between Jerry Miller and Mike Bloomfield might have been like, rather than wasting Bloomfield on keyboards at this session.
The Lake is psychedelic silliness, although the Grape can't be entirely blamed for it; this was a contest dreamed up by their then manager for the band to write a tune to a fan's lyric, much like Buffalo Springfield's In The Hour Of Not Quite Rain.
All in all, not the Grape's finest hour, but not a complete waste of time, either.
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